Martha was born Martha Jane Henry in County Down Ireland in 1790 and married Henry King in 1814, who was also from County Down. They had seven children Mary, John, Sarah, Ellen, Robert, Alexander and James.
Sadly, on the way out Martha’s husband, Henry died on October 30 aged 49. The family landed in Melbourne on January 4, 1841, six years after the region had been ‘discovered’ by Europeans such as John Batman and John Pascoe Fawkner in 1835 and four years after Governor Bourke proclaimed the town of Melbourne in 1837. Melbourne’s non-Indigenous population at the Census taken on March 2, 1841 was 4,479 (4) and the King family would have been counted in this Census, along with many other new arrivals seeking a new life in a ‘new’ country.
In spite of the fact that Martha was recently widowed and her daughter Mary died in 1842 aged 27, Martha had to continue on. The family was living in Moonee Ponds and to support her children she took charge of John Pascoe Fawkner's father's dairy herd - 113 head of cattle. John Fawkner had become insolvent and so had had to relinquish most of his farm at Pascoe Vale. The herd provided Martha with a source of income as she could sell the cheese that she made from the milk and the herd also provided employment for her children – daughters Sarah and Ellen were already experienced dairy women.
Martha needed a large area of land to run a dairy herd and she had access to land leased by her brother, Robert Henry. Robert had the Cardinia Creek No.1 run of 5,120 acres from October 1842 until May 1851 (5). It was later taken over by Terence O’Connor. This run was based, as the name suggests, on the Cardinia Creek, the west side. It is believed that Martha took on adjacent land on the corner of Pound Road and Thompsons road to look after the Fawkner herd. However as we know she wasn’t there for long as in 1845 she took up the 15,000 acre Bunguyan lease where the family lived in a cottage on the property whilst they were developing Bunguyan.
This is part of the Cranbourne Parish Plan and shows the Cardinia Creek pre-emptive right of 640 acres, which was once part of the 5,120 acres leased by Martha's brother, Robert Henry. Dr Niel Gunson describes the Cardinia Creek run as being north of St Germains (6) so I assume that the original run extended west (perhaps to Pound Road) and possibly north of the pre-emptive right.
Although Martha took up Bunguyan in 1845, the actual formal application wasn’t lodged until 1850 and it was gazetted on December 11, 1850.
In 1856, Martha purchased the 160 acre pre-emptive right of Bunguyan (which was on the south east corner of modern day O’Neills Road and Frankston Flinders Road in Tyabb). The property was sold in February 1860. Martha King then moved to the property owned by her daughter and son-in-law, Sarah and Richard Rogers, Tanti Grange, in Schnapper Point (now known as Mornington.)
Martha King died at Tanti Grange on August 11, 1860 and was buried in the old Melbourne Cemetery which was located on the corner of Queen Street and Victoria Street in Melbourne (now the site of the Queen Victoria market). There is a memorial plaque to Martha King at the Bunguyan Reserve in Tyabb (which I will take a photo of one day and add it to this post).
Family information on the seven children of Martha and Henry King
Mary - born 1815, died May 5 1842.
John - 1817, died January 26, 1870. John Charles King was appointed the first Town Clerk of the newly established Melbourne City Council in December 1842 and was later a Member of the Legislative Assembly and later still the business manager of The Argus. You can read his entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography here. You can also read his obituary in The Australasian of January 29, 1870, here.
Sarah - 1819, died September 7, 1898 at Warragul. Sarah married Richard Pierce Rogers in 1858. He was a Warragul Shire Councillor and died on May 25, 1884. His brother, John, had married Sarah Henry, Martha’s niece.
Ellen - 1822, died June 6, 1903, at Warragul, at Birchgrove, the home of her late sister, Sarah.
Robert - 1825, died July 19, 1883. Robert married Annie Henry in 1871. She was his first cousin, a daughter of Robert Henry. Robert and Annie were living at Coorangbong, in New South Wales when he died.
Alexander - 1827, died December 29, 1885. Alexander married Mary King in 1853; she was his first cousin, another daughter of Robert Henry. In 1853, Alexander and his brother, Robert, started the first general store on Ballarat at the foot of the hill on which Christ Church Pro Cathedral now stands, but after a short time moved on to the Eureka rush, and opened a branch store at Dalton’s Flat. After the Eureka Stockade riots the brothers closed the branch store and moved to Bridge street, where the business has since been carried on. He was a well known Iron-monger. This is from Alexander's interesting obituary, which was published in the Ballarat Star on December 30, 1885. You can read it here.
James 1830, died 1831.
